MS Office

precisionk

Can you use say a office 2007 basic product key for say office 2003 basic?

Reason I ask this, is because exchange 5.5 doesn't work with 2007, but does with 2003.

flatlinegraphics

keys are keyed to the program. will your house key work for your neighbor's house, even tho they are both split level ranches?

whuppins

That's not a good analogy. It's a legitimate question, since depending on the type of license model, newer keys can indeed work for older products and vice versa. In my experience with Microsoft products, though, this only applies to the volume licensing stuff (the stuff that doesn't need to be activated). With normal "basic" or "home" versions of Office and the like, I've never seen it work. I don't personally have an Office 2007 key that I can test with my copy of Office 2003, but I doubt that Microsoft has changed their policy in this way. If anything, they've made it more stringent.

embrik

No, it will not work. Sorry. And I think it's a fine analogy for MS products. Especially considering that there are two different types of Windows Vista volume license keys, and there are different volume license keys between a full Office Suite and individual components.

whuppins

I was just saying that there are indeed cases where a key would work for an earlier version, so an analogy which seems to imply that such a thing could never happen in any scenario is a little misleading.

flatlinegraphics

ok, for for volume licensing, all bets are off. but for most home users, they are using single license versions of the software. typically shrink wrap boxes.

and altogether, this is a way to force people to upgrade exchange.

and like all analogies, its not perfect. but generally, a single key will open a single lock in most circumstances, weather thats a door or a piece of software.